decided to storm, and the boats were piped.
While standing on tbe bulwark to superintend
the embarkation, the first lieutenant of the
Hastings was shot through the leg by a party
with an elephant gun, who had already favoured
four men on board with bullets in different
parts. It is a neat thing, this elephant gun,
carries a two ounce ball, and has a report
like a twenty-four pounder. At length, we of
the storming party were all in the boats, getting
in, of course, on the sheltered side so that the
enemy could not tell what we were doing. The
Hastings and Ramsgate fired incessantly, and
their shell practice was, I believe, remarkably
good, but at that moment one had hardly time
to admire it.

The boats shoved off, rounded the stern of
the Hastings, and the men began to give way
for the shore; then, despite what he himself
had said and enforced all the morning, about
men keeping behind the bulwarks and not
exposing themselves, the captain jumped up
into the rigging, cap in hand. In half a minute,
the crew were there too, and gave us three such
cheers as sailors only can give; the other ships
took it up, and away we went, cheering in return.
We got a volley when within fifty yards, but it
did not stop us. Everybody jumped overboard,
waist deep, into the mud and water, and rushed
on shore.

A lieutenant of the 99th took a somewhat
unfair advantage of the other boats. He is
reported to have stood over his own boat's crew
with a revolver, and to have threatened something
desperate if any one were on shore before
him. With this reward in view, they exerted
themselves to such good purpose that he was a
whole boat's length in advance. Being Irish,
when he landed he sang out: " Hooroo! Ush!
Ye divils!" and dashed at the trench.

A captain of the French artillery came to an
arrangement of a peculiar nature with a captain
of the 99th. Of course the Frenchman's guns,
mules, and horses, could not be put on shore
until the landing was secured, and a basis of
operation established: so he proposed to serve
with the 99th as a volunteer. He and the English
captain were to take hold of each other's hands,
and jump on shore together. This they did,
and then the Frenchman saluted, fell into the
ranks, and kept his dressing: loading and firing
like a private.

The landing-place was secured, and the 99th
advanced in skirmishing order towards the brow
of a hill about half a mile inland. The
intermediate space was a rice-swamp extending from
the river bank; the bank was thinly fringed
with mangrove bushes, and dotted with rifle-pits.
We passed them, and reached the hill,
which was covered with trees. Some of the
enemy still held this position, but were easily
driven out, and there was a broad plain before
us three or four miles in length; there was a
crop of ground-nuts on it.

The men passed on, two companies skirmishing
and one in reserve, when all of a sudden
there was a yell and a cloud of dust on the left.
The bugles rang out, the men doubled in and
formed square, and it seemed at first as if the
enemy must be among us immediately. The
Woolahs came on yelling and screaming to within
two hundred yards, when we fired a volley;
there were three or four empty saddles, and
away they went. Two or three of them, with
more pluck than the others, rode up at a splitting
gallop, and then turned, and, when they
were broadside on, wheeled right round in the
saddle, and fired their muskets into the square,
going at a gallop all the time. They ride like
Arabs, with short stirrups, and a broad flat
stirrup-iron like a shoe, and with a high peak
and cantle to the saddle.

Meanwhile, the Irish lieutenant and his company
had advanced on the right in pursuit of the
enemy and were out of sight. They came to a
large town over the hill, and formed the
praiseworthy intention of taking it; but the enemy,
whom they had followed, finding how few their
pursuers were, took heart, turned round, and
drove them out.

But the lieutenant re-formed his men at two
hundred yards from the town— the Woolah guns
are useless at that distance— and kept up a fire
on all who showed themselves. Finding that no
support came up, he and four men rushed back
into the town under a heavy fire from the enemy,
and succeeded, by aid of a lucifer-match and a
fire-stick, in setting fire to it. As the wind was
fresh, the bamboo and wattle blazed up fiercely.
The lieutenant then began to retire with his
company; some fifty or sixty horsemen made
a rush, but received a volley and withdrew, just
as the support came up. For this, the
lieutenant gets the Victoria Cross.

It was now half-past five P.M. The enemy
was showing in great numbers, and the tropical
night drawing on, so the retire was sounded all
along the line. As we were on our way back,
we heard the heavy sound of the Hastings's
sixty-eight, and whistling and shrieking high
over our heads went a ten-inch shell. To the
uninstructed it appeared to be seeking an enemy
in the clouds, but it soon began to descend, and
dropped bursting in the midst of a crowd of
advancing Woolahs two miles off. We had not
seen them, but they had been discerned from
the ship. They afterwards told us that the shell
killed fifteen men.

Our camp for the night was fixed in the
swamp at the edge of the creek, and, as nothing
had been landed, we were not very luxuriously
settled. Some of us, however, set to work to
collect wood and grass, started a roaring fire
with ample provision for keeping it up, took a
pull of cold brandy-and-water till the kettle
boiled, and then lay down in our cloaks, smoked
a pipe, and talked over the events of the day.
There was some little firing from the advanced
pickets, but, on the whole, a quiet enough night,
and sound sleep for every one.

Early rising was a necessity the next morning,
for the bugles, fifes, and drums, left no possibility
of rest. Then there were wells to be dug, and
water to be examined, and finally there was a